Ground anchors of the general class referred to are known from applicant's U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,076,532; 3,197,928; 3,328,928 and 3,636,670; although none of these is capable of being packaged according to the present invention. In the prior patents, each anchor is of generally Z-shaped form, having a ground-penetrating part, usually in the form of a helix that can be screwed into the ground; a post-supporting part which stands generally upright to receive the net posts; and leg means overlying the ground and rigidly interconnecting the parts, the post-supporting being usually tubular to receive the net post either internally or externally. It was also known to provide the net post sections in two sets of three equal-length sections per set and to provide the ends of the sections in one set so as to be capable of erection in end-to-end relation for use in play, the purpose of the three-section sets being to reduce the length of the overall package as it was then known.
Because of the discrete shapes of the parts, simple packaging was virtually an impossibility, primarily because it was convenient to provide each anchor as a one-piece or otherwise integrated unit, and the resulting Z-shape was incompatible with the elongated post sections. This problem, according to the present invention, has been solved by, for one thing, making the leg between the two parts of an anchor of dual or bifurcated construction so that the leg thus formed is adapted to accommodate a plurality of post sections passed therethrough. Specifically, five of the six sections are so arranged in parallelism and passed through the legs, and the sixth post, also arranged in parallelism, is passed through the coaxial ground-penetrating helices, leaving the coaxial (on another axis) post-supporting parts, which face each other and abut end-to-end, as a carrying handle, because the six post sections are held together toward the helices by securing or holding means wrapped about the six post sections. As a further adjunct the net is packaged along with the post sections and is held by the holding means. As a further expedient, the parts serving as a handle are held together by a keeper member to prevent relative angular movement of the two about the axis of the helices.